Peter Ho Davies

PETER HO DAVIES is the author of the novels A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself (2021), The Fortunes (2016) and The Welsh Girl (2007), as well as the story collections The Ugliest House in the World (1997) and Equal Love (2000), and a work of non-fiction, The Art of Revision: The Last Word (2021). His work has appeared in Harpers, The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, The Guardian, New York Times, Washington Post and TLS, among others, and his short fiction has been widely anthologized, including selections for Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards 1998 and Best American Short Stories 1995, 96 and 2001. In 2003 Granta magazine named him among its twenty Best Young British Novelists, and in 2008 he received the PEN/Malamud award for excellence in the short story. The Ugliest House in the World was awarded the John Llewelyn Rhys and PEN/Macmillan Prizes in the UK; Equal Love, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year was a finalist for the 2000 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the 2001 Asian American Literary Award. The Welsh Girl, a London Times bestseller, was long-listed for the Booker Prize, and the IMPAC award, and short-listed for The British Book Award. The Fortunes, a New York Times Notable Book, won the Anisfield-Wolf Award and the Chautauqua Prize, and was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself was a New York Times Notable Book and longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. Davies is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts (twice) and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. He has previously taught at the University of Oregon, Emory University and Northwestern University.

Peter Ho Davies online:

A video of Peter and colleague Julie Buntin discussing Peter's The Art of Revision for the Center for Fiction.
A syllabus of Peter's on LitHub.
A recent interview about Peter's writing process and an older one about MFA soccer!

Peter Ho Davies on the Workshop

My guiding approach in workshop is to try to first consider the aims of any story under discussion and then determine its strengths and weaknesses in light of those aims. I believe as writers we often learn as much from what we do well as what we do badly (and are often as unsure of both) so my classes focus on both problems and successes in the stories examined.

An Excerpt from Peter Ho Davies

from THE FORTUNES

"The thing about racism, I always think, the worst thing, okay, is not that someone has made up their mind about you, without knowing you, based on the color of your skin, the way you look, some preconception. The worst thing is that they might be right. Stereotypes cling if they have a little truth; they sting by the same token. A lot of us do work hard, many of us (those who hail from Canton anyway) are short. Some of us do have small dicks. And yes, as Evans' complaint about Vincent's tipping suggests, some of us are cheap (like our food, our goods, our labor). How would you feel if I call you racist? The white stereotype. But some of you are racist, right? It doesn't mean what's true of the many has to be true of the one, any more than what's true of the one must be true of the many."

Research Interests

Primary Interests

Creative Writing (fiction), Contemporary British and American fiction, History of the Short Story

Secondary Interests

Creative non-fiction, Theory and Practice of Teaching Creative Writing